Achieving universal broadband

Considerations in emerging and mature markets.

This talk took place on Thursday 9th October 2014 as part of the IIC Annual Conference in Vienna.

The cost of being on the wrong side of the “digital divide” is becoming greater all of the time, which underpins many initiatives, yet a significant percentage of households are often highly expensive to reach

Should governments ensure those consumers get something else (e.g. satellite or LTE broadband) instead? Or leave them be? How to persuade/educate those consumers who could take up broadband, but haven’t?

What does Universal Service mean in a digital world? What about the potentially distortive effects (in terms of competition) that universal service can have on the market?